Creating magic with words

Category: Family Tales

Our weather is very topsy turvy here. Saturday was in the mid 30’s. Sunday was low 20’s. Soup weather, I thought. On one of our trips to visit my sister, she had made a traditional Finnish fish soup (lohikeitto). I remember tasting it with some trepidation at the time. She assured me her soup was … More I Made Fish Soup

Being bilingual can be fun. It opens the world up to the nuances and subtleties of culture and languaging that is so hard to translate into another language. How do you translate a joke that is laden with dialect and localisms? Truth is, you can’t. It loses all context and falls flat. TRH (The Retired … More I’m a Translator

Whilst staying with family in Victoria recently, we got to discussing the many ‘thingamies’ my bother-in-law was prone to collect. Amongst those was a huge bagful of bone handled knives. I grabbed a selection to bring home as mementos. Knowing next to nothing about them, I did a bit of research. I wanted to clean … More Faux bone handle knives

The shingles are red cedar. The truss is made of natural logs cut from local timbers. Below are our memories, images and recollections. Les had a dream. His dream was to build a house. A house for his family to live in. Les did build a house. It took him over two decades. This … More This is the House that Les Built

TEARS The week started with the funeral of my brother-in-law. Sat on top of his coffin was a baseball cap and a torch, two items he was seldom without. LOVE and LAUGHTER There was much of this scattered throughout the whole week. We were delighted to catch up with an old family friend we … More A Week of Tears, Love and Laughter

It was six am. The morning of departure. We had a looong day’s drive ahead of us. 1100 kilometres, some of it through Melbourne’s evening rush hour traffic. The plan was to leave early. We had a funeral to go to. Alas, like all good plans, this one was foiled from the start. TRH (The … More The Mysterious Matter of the Missing Mobile

Goodbyes are never easy. Especially when it is the final one. We returned home last night from an eight day trip to Victoria. It was a final goodbye to a gentle man. A man we have known for most of our lives. The week was filled with tears, love and laughter. As we laid him … More Saying Goodbye

I’ll be ‘off the air’ for a week or two. First ever voluntary time out since I started blogging way back in August 2015! We will be spending time with family in Victoria as we farewell my brother-in-law. Raili Jamie Dupuis Advertisements

I’ve taken a leaf out of the blog from Cathi at overthehillontheyellowbrickroad. Cathi has conversations with inanimate objects about growing older with silliness, high spirits and a lot of heart. Today, I sit and wonder how a certain someone is going on his first ever overseas holiday in Japan. He left yesterday with a couple of … More I had a talk with a plane

Many years ago when I was still a young bride, my mother-in-law bought a loom. She wanted to make some mats. Out of rags. Because she couldn’t find one in Australia it arrived all the way from Finland. It was a huge thing. Filled a whole room. Unable to source the warp yarn here she … More Hand woven mats

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Raili

Welcome to my blog! I started blogging 'cos I love to write. About lots of things. In here you'll find poetry. Stories real and imagined. Serious stuff too like health and wellbeing. Feel free to surf, browse, follow... I really like to hear back from you too, so would love it if you leave a comment or two.

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